AL East Notes: Red Sox, Rays, Kim

At $17.6MM and $11.3MM, respectively, Pablo Sandoval and Rusney Castillo will give the Red Sox two of the AL’s three most expensive bench players this season, writes Alex Speier of the Boston Globe. (Those salary figures include portions of those players’ signing bonuses.) And in addition to Sandoval and Castillo, the Red Sox will also have Allen Craig, who has a $9MM salary, at Triple-A. The only more expensive reserve than Sandoval or Castillo will be Josh Hamilton, who will make about $26MM, most of it paid by the Angels. The Red Sox’ projected $48MM bench is almost four times more expensive than that of the average AL team. Of course, the Red Sox have enough money to have very expensive players, but the cases of Sandoval, Craig and perhaps Castillo are reminders of some of the organization’s past mistakes. Here’s more from the AL East.

In the Rays’ additions of Hank Conger, Corey Dickerson, Brad Miller, Logan Morrison and Steve Pearce and subtractions of Jake McGee, Nathan Karns, Rene Rivera and James Loney, the Rays might be straying from their pitching-and-defense-first philosophy, Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times writes. Rays president of baseball operations Matt Silverman says the team has merely made a slight adjustment to take advantage of what was available — making itself better by finding better offensive players that are capable enough defensively. Chris Archer, at least, agrees with their new approach. “You have to have balance,” he says. “We learned for the last eight years that just being pitching heavy is probably not the way to do it. You’ve got to have defense. You’ve got to have pitching — the teams that win get high-level pitching, starting and relief. But you’ve got to have offense, too.”

The Orioles’ situation with Hyun Soo Kim is “a mess,” Dan Connolly of BaltimoreBaseball.com writes. The two sides currently disagree about whether Kim is ready to play in the Majors, but Kim has the right to refuse a minor-league assignment. This isn’t the first time the O’s have run into had a hard time due to an interaction with a Korean player, Connolly notes — they had to release pitcher Suk-min Yoon last year when it became clear they had little use for him, allowing him to go back to the KIA Tigers in Korea. And they were briefly banned from scouting in Korea after offering a deal to amateur pitcher Seong-Min Kim.

People also forget he had a bad shoulder injury at the end of April. He had hit 10 HRs in one month prior to the injury and just 9 the rest of the way. Defense aside, he should be able to at least hit well enough for a season then DH next year

Rangewise, Boston’s left field is the easiest–there’s the least ground to cover. The only difficulty is the carems, but I’ve seen some very ungifted athletes master them with practice. I think in this case, he just didn’t want to put in the effort.

I don’t think the Craig deal was bad. Nobody expected him to bottom out like that. His FA signings and other deals (Porcello) were panic moves that an inexperienced GM will make, especially in a demanding market like Boston. Cherington used the “bridge year” expression too often and knew he had to step on the gas. Unfortunately, he drove the bus into a tree.

Boy, the Orioles really are becoming the worst team to sign with. First all the medical fails-that-arent-actually-fails, now this? They need to make some serious PR moves or else no one will go near them.

“Fails that aren’t actually fails” you mean Grant Balfour Tyler Colvin Jeromy Burnitz Aaron Sele Xaiver Hernandez? How did their careers go after their “not actual fails”? Can you name one player the Orioles were wrong about with their physicals? I don’t know why I am asking because you won’t. And in regards to Kim what is wrong with wanting to have your best 25 man roster? Going to aaa would be the best thing for the team and for Kim. You should change your name to “just another fool”

Grant Balfour had two good seasons after his “failed” physical. But I agree that’s pretty much it. The whole point is though they need to become more attractive to free agents and they’re giving themselves a bad rep, smart decisions or not

Balfour crapped the bed after the “not actual fail” if we are being realistic. And fowler had nothing to do with a physical. So another epic fail on a post by you. I never said they were infallible either. Believe me they have done many things that I was not impressed with. Your post was just full of nonsense. the only thing you are right on is I should lay off the name calling. Ignorance sometimes sets me off.

I’ve criticized the O’s plenty in the past, but nobody in this situation has done anything wrong.

The Orioles signed a player to a contract and decided he wasn’t one of the 25 best options they had to start the year. There’s nothing wrong with that.

The player has a contract that stipulates he doesn’t have to access a minor league assignment, and he’s exercising that right. There’s nothing wrong with that.

The only thing left is for the O’s to decide if they want to change their minds or eat the $7MM they paid. Assuming the latter, it was money poorly spent — but that doesn’t make it some horrible organizational failing. Overpaying a player happens all the time. Heck, Loney is about to get cut for $8MM.

jb226, it goes further than that: the entire nation of South Korea has stock in this – care to fathom a guess about how many Orioles jerseys have been bought by Koreans? You appear to have no knowledge of MLB’s place in the world arena. Stuff like this effects all of MLB subsidiaries, like how many baseball cards have been made of Kim by now? I’m guessing tons.

You act like “no big deal, its only on the player and team” but that’s such a narrow view. I wouldn’t expect you to understand how something like this is a massive deal, but just know that if you think baseball is nothing more than player+team, you are very wrong, do some googling…..

From your previous posts, it’s clear that you have a feel for every team in baseball, so I’m not gonna sit here and call you an irrational Oriole hater or anything, but can you clarify why it’s the Orioles’ responsibility to concern themselves with the feelings of Korean fans over their own success? I don’t mean to suggest that keeping Kim will cost them this season or anything, but if they feel that keeping Rickard and Reimold (one of whom who have to go otherwise, since Rickard is a Rule V guy, and Reimold is out of options) gives them a better chance to compete this year, don’t they owe it to their own fans to go forward with those guys? Serious question, not being sarcastic or rhetorical

But the fact remains…….the Orioles paid him to produce the way he did in Korea. As with other players NOT from Korea……if you don’t produce, you go to the minors to work out the bugs and come back. Maybe the O’s should just “Park Kim on the bench” and see how he likes it. Tell him he has 2 choices…..go to the minors and get called back up in a couple months (and keep getting your paychecks)……..or stay with the big club and “ride the pine”. The guy gets “paid to play baseball”….and he’s NOT hitting!!! I don’t believe that the ballclub (25 active players) should suffer because one guy “doesn’t want to go to the minors”. Either that, or just send him back to Korea…….

I’m not sure it’s that simplistic either. Kim’s representatives probably pushed pretty hard for this clause, since he’s had a very successful career and is carrying the hopes of baseball fans across the world with him, so it’s logical that he would decline an assignment that he may view as demeaning or embarrassing, especially since his 7 million is guaranteed regardless. He’s best suited playing it the way he is, calling the Orioles’ bluff, and forcing them to decide if he’s worth a roster spot. Not sure it’s simply “stupid Orioles” or “selfish Kim”

I remember when Castillo was signed and several Yankees fans on this site were calling Cashman foolish for not going after him. In their defense though they were also pretty upset that he didn’t go after Kang instead of Didi. Hopefully, with the way Castillo, Tomas and Olivera have turned out so far the price on Cuban talent will come back down to earth. I still think Moncada is going to be something special but with such a large influx of Cuban players the past couple of years some of them were bound to be busts. There can only be so many Puig’s and Abreu’s out there.

True.. The only caveat to your point is that there are only a handful that got $30 mm. How many $25 mm Cuban (or international) players were read (scouting reports) so poorly?

I am a Cubs fan and cringe at the thought of the $’s being associated with this ‘Lazarito’ kid (there is enough variation to teams perception of his top end, that I wouldn’t risk the $ on a 17 year old)

Anyway, the Red Sox (too often) spend money like a drunken sailor… Could have spent panda-Ramirez-Castillo money and have easily got Grienke( ), or ‘anyone’ else they wanted..

What’s even sillier was that castillo’s signing was only 8 months after they low balled Lester when they had a chance to ‘extend’ him.. Then low balled Lester again when he was a free agent..

I think the Orioles should have opted to rebuild. I imagine Baltimore fans probably find that distasteful as they were a .500 team last year, but there circumstances are a little different.

1. They are in a really difficult division where every team improved to some extent. The Orioles look like they lost a little ground though.

2. If they went into rebuild mode, they wouldn’t have a 4 to 6 year rebuild the way the Cubs did or even become the disastrous mess Astrose fans had to live with. The reason why is, they actually have some talent that could get them strong prospect packages. Trade away pretty much everyone not named Machado.

It looks pretty unlikely the Orioles can do much better than 78 wins so what is there to lose, really.

I hated it when I watched the Braves do the same thing after a 78 win year, but it makes since to trade for prospects when you actually have something teams want than when you dont, winning only 60 games. Now Braves fans are beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

It’s funny to me when people say The Craig trade was a mistake. Guy was a beast in STL before foot injury. Gammons I believe called him a “professional hitter” No one could think it would all go away like it has.

He was having a rotten year in St. Louis when they traded for him but you are correct. Nobody would have guessed he wouldn’t be able to hit his way out of AAA. He could be one of those players better suited for the NL though. I would like to see the Red Sox just cut him loose and see if he can latch on with an NL team again. I think the key to that trade was Kelly though. If he has finally turned the corner and can start to get closer to his ceiling the trade will be looked at much more favorable for the Red Sox. Losing Lackey for a year at league minimum and the draft pick the Cards got for him leaving for the production of Kelly and Craig so far has made Cherington look really bad. His unwillingness to trade prospects instead of signing high priced free agents was his undoing. The Red Sox were given a big gift when the Dodgers took their bad contracts and instead of learning from their mistakes they went and repeated them. Crawford, Beckett and AGon replaced with Castillo, Ramirez and Sandoval. No team is going to bail them out this time.

Agon was not a bad contract. He has lived up to it so far. The problem was they had to give him up for the Dodgers to take the rest of the garbage. They would be fine with the Agon deal had he staid put in Boston.